New England Revolution enter international break at top of the Eastern Conference

It might not have been the prettiest win but the New England Revolution were able to walk away with three points on Saturday against FC Cincinnati. With a long international break ahead, the Revs will be pleased with the effort they have put in so far this season.

In their first eight games, New England boasts a record of 5-1-2. The Revs have a perfect home record and have a three game winning streak headed into the break.

New England has seen great play from all over the pitch. So far Adam Buksa and Carles Gil stand out as Buksa has scored in three straight games and leads the team with four goals this season.

Gil on the other hand has been a magician. He currently leads MLS in assists and on Saturday became just the fourth MLS player in 10 years to record at least seven chances from set play and was a single chance shy of Diego Valeri’s record of eight.

For a Revolution team coming off of a loss in the Eastern Conference Finals, this is about as good of a start as you can have. After the game, Gil gave his thoughts on entering the international break atop the Eastern Conference standings.

The captain said, “[We feel] good. The feelings we have are the ones we wanted. We wanted to start the season strong. We didn’t do that last year. It was clear that we had to start strong. We want to play well at home and get as many points as we can on the road. We’re happy. We know we have to improve a lot of things and there are a lot of games left. It’s not easy being complacent in this league.”

Matt Turner is another player who has been dominating for the Revolution in 2021. The goalkeeper has three clean sheets this season and continues to prove that he is the best at his position in MLS.

Similar to Gil, Turner is pleased with how the team started the season.

He said, “I think it’s pretty clear, we got off to a great start. There’s no denying that. Whether you look at points, goals scored, goals against, clean sheets, all the stats. We’re creating chances and we’re hard to break down defensively. Now the next test is how do we recover from these eight games and just continue to build, get better and score a goal in 10 minutes rather than waiting until the end of the game and put teams away, rather than winning one-nil, winning two-nil, three-nil, things like that. This group is committed. It’s a huge win to get right before this little bit of a break, because everyone’s going to go into their break with good memories and good vibes about what it’s like to be in season. Then we’ll get back to work and I’m sure the vibes will be good.”

Revolution fans will have to wait a while to see their favorite club play again. With the international break New England’s next game isn’t until June 19th when they face NYCFC.

But so far the 2021 season has been great for the Revolution. The rest of MLS should watch out as the scary thing is that New England could actually play even better.